TRJF - Excellent! I'm going to rep you right now for that!

When I was a believer, it was pretty important to 'save souls' by reaching out to as many people as possible. Coming to the realization that things don't work that way, I am far less concerned with whether people convert to my way of thinking. In part because I still have to deal with family (and the occasional friend or acquaintance) reminding me of just how obnoxious proselytizing can be. And it's not just religion, either; Yesterday I got a facebook message from a friend asking me to sign a petition to demand that the government come clean on the 9/11 conspiracy. I sighed and closed the message without as much as a reply. Hey, if you want to believe in crazy shit and aren't a complete douchebag, I can deal. I was a fundamentalist Christian at one time in my life, after all.

Should you help your 70-year-old mother lose her faith?

Uhhhh..........no.

(April 1, 2015 at 2:30 pm)Judi Lynn Wrote: TRJF - Excellent! I'm going to rep you right now for that!

Aww, thanks! We can't let the theists have a monopoly on vision-related literary devices!

I mean we a atheist for the most part are honest but they do not want to listen to reason or arguments from intelligence.

There are enough xtians who serve as a horrible example of xtianity.  Content yourself with pointing them out.

There's one *pointing over there.

Hey! There's another! *pointing in the opposite direction.

Run for cover! They're everywhere! We must kill them all before they lay eggs!!

(April 1, 2015 at 1:37 pm)watchamadoodle Wrote: Sometimes I wonder if I should be openly and vocally atheist in an effort to help my family and friends to lose faith.

Any ideas?
- My mother is 70 and I doubt if she would ever lose faith, but I could be surprised. I try to pretend to believe a little bit for her sake. Her beliefs are somewhat fundamentalist and also somewhat superstitious (Eastern Orthodox)
- My brother and his family believe similarly to my mother except less strongly.
- My sister and her husband are Lutherans.

I feel bad leaving them to believe nonsense when I might be able to help them - especially my brother and sister. On the other hand, it could create a big mess.

Without knowing the specifics of your situation, it is hard to recommend a course of action.

Remember, though, that you cannot control what other people believe.  The most one can do is influence someone, but that isn't the same at all.

Many years ago, without me knowing it at the time, my mother asked one of my brothers to talk with me about religion, because she thought I was straying from my Christian upbringing.  (I never declared I was an atheist, but I said some things that were not in keeping with blind faith and obedience to what I had been told.)  So my brother did.  Whenever he would bring up the subject of religion, I would talk with him, but I spoke with him in a disinterested way, not about what I believe personally.  I would ask questions and bring up all sorts of troublesome issues that were relevant to whatever religious idea he happened to bring up.  Of course, he had no answer for many of the problems of Christianity, because there is no way of making it all make sense.  So when hitting an impasse, that would tend to shut him up for a while.  Of course, some days later, he would be talking about some other aspect of religion, and I would engage him as before.  But I did not initiate any of the conversations on religion; I merely reacted to whatever it was that he brought up.  Over time, the result was that he no longer believed in religion and is now an atheist.

So, if any of them talk with you about religion, go ahead and engage them, if you wish.  I recommend a disinterested approach, and to let the conversation die whenever they want it to.  But, of course, you know your family better than I do (since I do not know them at all), and so you must decide for yourself how you want to be and what you want to do.

(April 1, 2015 at 3:12 pm)dyresand Wrote: I mean we a atheist for the most part are honest but they do not want to listen to reason or arguments from intelligence.

How would you know?

(April 1, 2015 at 3:56 pm)alpha male Wrote:

(April 1, 2015 at 3:12 pm)dyresand Wrote: I mean we a atheist for the most part are honest but they do not want to listen to reason or arguments from intelligence.

How would you know?

How do i know, Personally i seen what christianity does to good people history shows it. Need i remind the horrible things Christians did and still do. 
I don't need to remind anyone. Lets see modern day now christians are still bigots for the most part Indiana want's to pass a religious law that allows businesses 
and other places to be openly bigot saying we do not server your kind, homosexuals, etc here and get away with it because religion. Need i say anymore?
Because well in this day and age it doesn't pay to be a decent fucking human being. The fact is religion does back some fucked up shit and it has done in history and it still does now. 
I am atheist i do not want war or to make someone's life worse because they want to marry someone of the same sex, fuck marriage is older than most religions.